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The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord\u2019s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion\u2014to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. (Isaiah 61:1-4)

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This passage is a breath of fresh air, isn\u2019t it?\xa0 Finally everything set right.\xa0 Even more eloquently than the book of Revelation, this passage gives the future hopes of God\u2019s people: the year of jubilee comes with healing, freedom, justice, and provision enough for all.\xa0 It is the day when death and the curse of ashes to ashes and dust to dust is undone, traded in for the undying glory and beauty of our resurrection bodies in the new creation.\xa0 Then will our time of mourning end and our despair be dispersed in the dawn of a new day.\xa0

So much around us at present seems to be crumbling\u2014institutions and memories and the ways that thing were even being torn down\u2014deconstructed, literally in the world around us and figuratively in many of our own hearts and minds.\xa0 It is a disorienting world of much change where very little makes sense according to our sensibilities of even just a decade ago.

But whatever has been lost, whatever has been torn down\u2014by us or by others\u2014on this day, God\u2019s day: it will be rebuilt.\xa0 Not perhaps in the way that it was.\xa0 But in a renewed way\u2014the way of the Kingdom of God\u2014the way of the New Creation.\xa0

As Reformed people we often look back to the Creation Order to understand the norms by which we are to live in this day.\xa0 But our faith does not lean backwards to the past\u2014passages like this remind us that our faith leans and even longs forward, not toward the old creation, but toward the new.

Now of course, Isaiah was talking to an exiled people of Israel, and the ruins they longed to rebuild were the ruins of Jerusalem and its temple.\xa0 Of course, the rebuilding of those ruins by the returning exiles only ever captured a shadow of what they had been back in Solomon\u2019s day.\xa0 So, there is more here to this passage than that.\xa0

The New Testament confirms this.\xa0 Jesus takes the opening lines of this passage up as the declaration of his own mission in Luke 4:18-19. \xa0This is the vision of the Kingdom of God that would shape the work of Jesus through his life, teaching, death, resurrection, and ascension.\xa0 It is the vision that shapes the coming of the Kingdom of God still\u2014in that future day when Jesus comes again and it\u2019s all complete, yes\u2014but even here and now Jesus does this work through his Spirit and people like you and me.\xa0 The new creation is here, is coming, and will one day be complete.\xa0 \xa0\xa0

So: how does this Isaiah vision and mission of Jesus through the Kingdom that is coming on earth as it is in heaven shape your life and living?\xa0 How are you participating in the proclamation of Good News to the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives and prisoners, those suffering from injustice, and those despairing in grief?\xa0 How are you participating in the work, not just of deconstructing, but also of reconstructing until Jesus comes again?\xa0 It\u2019s no easy work, but the \u201cSpirit of the Sovereign Lord\u201d is on us and we may trust\u2014as Paul writes while reflecting on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15\u2014that our \u201clabor in the Lord is not in vain.\u201d\xa0

May Jesus accomplish it in and through his church\u2014both now and finally on that day.\xa0 Come, Lord Jesus, come.

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